The Mummy: Tom Cruise vs. Ancient Evil

But he’s never fought the ancient evil of the Mummy before. In a remake of the 1999 Brendan Fraser film (and to be clear, “remake” is being used at its most liberal), Cruise stars as Sergeant Nick Morton, a soldier who accidentally unleashes the foulest form of evil that Cruise has ever faced: the dead/undead Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella). See, Ahmanet has been imprisoned, mummified for all eternity for making a pact with the god Set (Javier Botet), which involved her whacking her family back in ancient Egypt.

Now, it’s up to Morton and Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) to stop the ancient evil from decomposing everything in her sights, as Ahmanet has spent hundreds of years cooped up plotting her revenge. Sounds like Cruise’ Morton might be in over his head, right?

No worries, here comes Russell Crowe to the rescue.

As Dr. Henry Jekyll, Crowe heads up an organization called Prodigium, aimed at stamping out monsters who roam the Earth. [This seems to be a solid tie-in to what Universal was planning (is planning?) to do with a series of older myths and legends that once graced silver screens in black and white.] If there wasn’t enough 1990s and 2000s star-power to excite audiences with Cruise, Crowe should push them over the top.

Now, audiences can dig into this taut adventure, and then check out a host of extra special features:

-Cruise and director Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek Into Darkness, Now You SeeMe) discuss making the film in “Cruise & Kurtzman: A Conversation Rooted in Reality.”

-“Life in Zero-G: Creating the Plane Crash,” as Cruise and some of his castmates shoot one of the (for Cruise movies) expected spectacular scenes.

-Boutella explains how she helped reinvent the Mummy in “Meet Ahmanet.”

-“Nick Morton: In Search of a Soul,” takes us into Cruise’s mindset for his protagonist.

-Feature commentary with Kurtzman, Boutella, Wallis, and Jake Johnson, as well as deleted and extended scenes.